Columns

I apologize. This is a rude headline, and I can hear my mother’s voice in the back of my brain, “Now Phil, that’s rude. Don’t say things like that.”
My first instinct is to reply to that voice by saying, “But he calls other people a loser all the time.” “Yes, I know,” my mom’s voice says, “but just because he is rude doesn’t mean you have to be. We didn’t raise you that way.”
As usual, Mom is right. I guess it was just my “inner Trump” getting out.

When S.C. politicians start to talk about education, almost immediately it becomes an argument about money.
Before we as a state wade into this political swamp of “spend more – spend less,” we should first focus on things that we can do to improve education that cost little or no money. This won’t fix our big education problems long term, but it’s at least a constructive, positive step forward while the partisan politicians bicker among themselves.

This is a letter to the young woman who rear-ended me around 10:30 Sunday morning, July 24, and fled the scene on Hubbard Drive.
I am writing this letter because I am still in disbelief at your folly. Surely, you are not gloating because you have apparently gotten away with something that you will eventually answer to.
I was en route to church with my 82-year-old mother, who is in ailing health. For the first time in weeks, she felt up to attending service and I was more than willing to oblige.

I want to share with everyone about a scam going around.
It started Tuesday, July 12. We got a call. He said he was from Bank of America. I told him I was not interested in credit cards or loans. He would not hang up.
I hung the phone up.
He called right back. Just listen to me; I’ve got good news for you, he said. I told him I did all my banking at Founders and not to call again.

The final phase of this political season has officially begun. I think we can all agree to a great big “amen” here.
The presumptive candidates have been selected, and there are less than four months left for the candidates to dazzle us with their brilliant rhetoric, snide remarks, denials of culpability and other as yet unknown items that will surface before November and be thrown as broadsides against the opposition.

Which was it during the July 18 Lancaster County Council meeting? There was much discussion and some opposition to Councilman Jack Estridge’s motion to undo or rescind the approval of a June 13 motion to renew a motion that was never made.
The June 13 actions were a clear violation of the council’s rules of parliamentary procedures.
Estridge’s motion itself was really quite simple – “a motion to rescind (cancel) the approval of a motion to renew an ordinance or, if you prefer, to renew a motion.” That was it.

Yes, let’s talk. Not only to ourselves, not only to people who look like us, not only to people who go to church with us, not only to our friends and family, but also to our community members, clergy and law enforcement officers.
In order to start to heal from the tragedies that have occurred throughout our country, we must have an open and honest dialogue with folks who do not look like us. We need to understand why we do not trust each other. We need to understand we all hurt when our loved ones are killed.

Our American family is experiencing turmoil we have not seen in a generation.
Two weeks ago, a tragedy in Dallas, where five police officers were killed and seven more wounded, closed a disturbing week that began with the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philandro Castille. Then, early this past Sunday, three Baton Rouge police officers were ambushed and killed.

In 2014, Janet Yellen was named chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, succeeding Ben Bernanke.
Under Bernanke the Fed failed to exhibit the leadership necessary to maintain the independence Congress intended. Instead, the board became a partner to the White House, correlating the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve with the administration’s fiscal policies.
The result has been a disastrous federal debt of over $19 trillion and monetary policies that will ultimately lead to inflation pressures or worse when we finally deal with it.

As I sit here, at my desk, on July 8 with a blank page in front of me, I am trying to organize my thoughts and emotions, in order to convey some level of objectivity and sense, to events that have just transpired. I have tears in my eyes and in my heart for the tragedy that has just taken place in Dallas, Texas.